LEND-LEASE PROGRAM (45)

US NAVY CONVERSIONS (60)

PC's CONVERTED TO PCC's

Thirty-five PCs were converted to Patrol Craft -
Control (PCC) for use in amphibious landing operations.

Extra personnel accommodations and communications
equipment were added, the weight compensated for by removal of depth
charges.

Four twin-mount, 20mm guns replaced the single 20s.
In addition, the PCCs were fitted with SU radar replacing the earlier
SF or SL radar. The ship hull numbers were not changed. On some,
large PCC lettering was painted on the bow.

PC WORLD WAR II SERVICE

PCs were highly effective in protecting convoys along the Atlantic
seaboard, in the Caribbean and South Atlantic during the critical
1942-1943 "Battle of the Atlantic" years, filling the
gap until the Destroyer Escort (DE) could be built and deployed.
Though only a few German U-Boats were actually sunk by PCs, their
presence, and the threat of depth charge attacks, was a deterrent
to the U-Boat commanders. With the threat of submarine attacks on
the wane, the PCs took on more hazardous duties, serving in virtually
every combat theater around the world.

The PC proved exceptionally adapt as Patrol Control Craft (PCC),
controlling and guiding waves of landing craft in every European
amphibious landing from Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily
in July 1943, to Operation Overlord, the combined Allied invasion
of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

In the Pacific, the PCCs were assigned to the Seventh Fleet, "MacArthur's
Navy," participating in all island-hopping amphibious landings
through Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Operation Olympic, the invasion of the Japanese home island of
Kyushu, was the next big invasion planned for execution in March,
1946. The PCCs had received their beach control assignments and
were preparing for the invasion when the war ended in August, 1945.

As testimony to their vital role as control ships, the Japanese
had assigned entire squadrons of suicide boats to destroy, or disrupt,
the PCCs during future landing operations.